Kohle, Kie$ & Knete
(Boodle, Buck$ & Bread)

Game invented by Sid Sackson.
Published by ?.
Copyright 1994, Sid Sackson.
Translated by Jon Ferro.

If you want to make a good deal from a hot transaction you need the
necessary capital--or good connections. Without money, but with good
contacts with influential investors, you can amass millions in winnings
in this game, provided that you bring the correct people to the
bargaining table. If the other players play their cards in your favor,
then it is a matter of negotiations--and a question of the distribution
of profits. But watch out for meddling players botching your handiwork
with underhanded tricks, or taking the reins right out of your hands!
Each play is a turbulent game of give and take in which every player
will be involved.

Components

1 board

6 Investor cards

98 Influence cards

15 Deal tiles

1 dollar marker

1 die

money

1 rulebook

The Board

... shows 16 "Big Deals" which are waiting to be concluded. Each of
these deals shows how many dividends (Gewinnanteile) are to be paid out
and which Investor or Clan cards are needed for the conclusion of the
deal. The more participants, the higher the number of dividends. The
value of each dividend is determined by the Deal tiles during the course
of the game.

If a grey block shows more than one name, then the number next to it
shows how many members of that group must take part.

Illustration

Number of dividends (Anzahl der Gewinnanteile)

Number of required investors (Anzahl der ben\"otigten Geldgeber)

Names of the investors (Namen der Geldgeber)

Example

The shown space requires the participation of Raffzahn, Liebgeld and
Knetowitz, and 2 investors from the group of Talerfeld, Piepenbrok and
Heiermann, making 5 people in all.

Object of the Game

Each player seeks to make deals by bringing together the needed
investors and collecting the dividends. Money can also be gained by
participating in the deals of opponents. At the end the player with the
largest sum of Kohle, Kies und Knete [i.e., money - Jon] wins the game.

Preparation for Play

Remove the 6 Investor cards from the deck (solid color backs, without
the money pattern). Each player randomly receives one card (with 3
players, each receives 2 cards) and puts it face up on the table. With
4 or 5 players, the 1 or 2 remaining cards are placed face up next to
the board.

The rest of the deck is shuffled well. Each player receives 5 cards
face down and takes them into his hand. The remainder of the deck is
stacked face down in the middle of the board. Don't let the other
players see your cards!

The Deal tiles are ordered by number and stacked in the middle of the
board. The tile for the first Deal is on top, the one for the 15th Deal
is on the bottom. You can see that by this stacking of the tiles that
the value of each dividend is larger the later a deal is concluded.

One player is chosen to be banker. To begin, NO money is given to the
players. You begin the game even, with empty pockets!

The player whose Investor is first in alphabetical order begins the
game. The player to his right puts the dollar marker on the space of
his choice. This game is obviously completely even at the start; the
starting player has no advantage!

Order of Play

On your turn you have the following choice:

Either "make the deal" (say "let's make a deal") that the dollar
marker is on, in order to collect the dividends (or at least try...),

or roll the die and move the dollar marker clockwise to another
space. You must move the full amount of the roll. Deals that have been
concluded (they will be marked by being covered with Deal tiles) are
skipped and not counted.

At the new space you again have a choice:

Either "make the deal",

or draw three cards from the face down stock of Influence cards.

It is then the turn of the player to your left.

Play tip: At the beginning of the game you should first stock up your
supply of cards, so that you will be able to interfere in negotiations
or protect yourself against the actions of other players.

"Let's Make a Deal"

With these words you open negotiations on the Deal that the dollar
marker stands on. You are now "the Boss" of this round and seek to
bring together all of the people named in the space so that at the end
you will receive the dividends.

Your own Investor card is automatically in play. If you have
multiple Investor cards in front of you, they are all automatically in
play.

You can bring missing investors into play by playing other family
members (Clan cards) from your hand and putting them face up in front of
you. These Clan cards can always be used in place of the Investor card
with the same last name. Each Investor is matched by 4 Clan cards in
the Influence card deck.

Investors that you are still missing you must either recruit through
negotiations with other players or draft through the play of Influence
cards.

As soon as you have opened the Deal, all players can interfere in the
negotiations. There is no special order. Any player can be active at
any time:

through bidding in negotiations,

through the play of Influence cards.

Bids in Negotiations

Players having Investors or their Clan cards that you are missing can
make offers:

either verbally, when it is for an Investor card,

or by playing a corresponding Clan card (the card is played face up in front of that player).

They then negotiate with the Boss over the terms by which the card(s)
will be placed at your disposal.

Negotiations can only be for cash payments from the current Deal. The
bidding players can ask for a dividend or for any other amount that they
desire. You must decide for yourself whether you agree! The agreed
amounts are paid at the conclusion of the Deal. Prepayments are not
allowed.

Regardless of events, the cards entering negotiations remain on the
table in front of the players that played them, whether you agree to
bargain for them or not.

Other Influence Cards

Besides the Clan cards, each player (including the Boss) can play other
Influence cards at any time to influence the negotiations or to react to
the actions of other players. The cards give the negotiations
additional "action" and excitement than they would have, because any
player can play at any time and no one must wait until his turn. The
detailed example at the end of the rulebook gives tips for possible
plays. The numbers in brackets below show how many cards of each type
are in the game.

Travel cards (21)

A Travel card can be played on an Investor or Clan card. The
corresponding card can no longer participate in the current Deal.
(There are 3 Travel cards for each family name in the game, and 3
nameless Travel cards that can be played as Jokers.)

If the card is played on an Investor, it stays on the Investor until the
end of the negotiation round, after which it goes to the discard pile.
If it is played on a Clan card, both cards are immediately discarded.

Recruitment cards (33)

These cards can only be played in triples; alone they are worthless. By
playing a Recruitment triple you steal a foreign Investor card and make
it your own. The Recruitment cards are discarded. With 4 or 5 players,
the extra Investor cards near the board must be recruited first. Clan
cards may not be recruited.

Boss cards (10)

By playing this card and saying "I am now the Boss!" the former Boss is
unseated. The player of the card takes over the turn (thereby also
changing the turn order that will follow).

The new Boss now controls the negotiations for the current Deal.
Whether the other players stick with their previous agreements or
negotiate new terms is left to them. Clan cards that have already been
played remain on the table. People that have been sent on Travel
continue to be on Travel after the change of Boss. The previous Boss
can still take part in the negotiations and play cards.

Multiple Boss cards can be played in a negotiation round. The turn
belongs to whoever played the last one.

STOP cards (10)

A STOP card can be played immediately after

a Travel card

a Boss card

a Recruitment triple

to cancel the effect of that play. It cannot be played to cancel
another STOP card.

A player can also play a STOP card in favor of another player, in order
to protect his negotiations.

Example:

The Boss has secured the support of the Investor card of another player
and they have agreed on the price. A third player plays a Travel card
on the foreign Investor. The affected player has no STOP cards (or
chooses not to play any). The Boss can then play a STOP card to cancel
the Travel card, because he wants the Deal to go through no matter what.

No player may have more than 12 Influence cards (not counting
Investors). A player drawing to more than 12 cards must immediately
discard the excess or play a Recruitment triple.

Conclusion of the Deal

Are you still the Boss? Good, then read on:

As soon as you have all of the Investors for the Deal at your disposal
(whether they are Investor or Clan cards does not matter), you declare
that the negotiations are concluded ("The Deal is closed!"). No players
may play any more Influence cards!

If you already have all of the cards necessary to conclude the Deal
alone, you must regardless give the other players time to play Influence
cards before you end the Deal. This means that you must open the Deal,
wait at least some amount of time (count slowly to 10) and then you may
declare "the Deal is closed!".

Play tip: As a harmless variant, you can also agree that the Boss must
ask each player if he wants to play cards before the Deal is concluded.

Each player takes back into his hand any Clan cards that were played
during the negotiations but were not required to conclude the Deal. All
other played Influence cards go to the discard pile. When the stock of
Influence cards is exhausted, the discard pile is shuffled and turned
face down to become the new draw pile.

The banker pays out to the Boss the dividends shown on the board space.
The value of each dividend is given by the top Deal tile.

Example:

For the first Deal, each dividend is worth $2M. If you conclude a Deal
that returns 6 dividends, you receive (6 x 2 =) $12M from the bank.

After you receive your dividends you--the Boss--must pay to the other
players the amounts agreed upon by negotiations. All agreements for
payments must be honored!

After all payments have been made, put the Deal tile face down (Der Deal
ist gelaufen!) on the completed space. The dollar marker is moved to
the next free space (clockwise). It is now the turn of the player to
your left. A reminder: Spaces covered by Deal tiles are always skipped
when moving the dollar marker and are not counted.

Breakdowns in Negotiations

If you do not succeed in bringing together the necessary people for the
transaction, you must announce that the negotiations have failed. This
is sometimes bad, but sometimes not to be avoided, if the other players
would be getting too much money from profit-sharing. In this case, like
the previous, played Clan cards are taken back up, if they were not sent
to the discard pile by Travel cards. All other played Influence cards
are discarded.

When the deal fails, it is immediately the turn of the next player to
the left of the Boss. The Boss may not roll again or draw influence
cards. That is only allowed if the negotiations were never opened.

Game Money

Each player must keep his money visible on the table. He may stack it,
however, so that the actual amount is not known to the other players.

End of Game

Starting with the tenth deal, the die decides after each concluded deal
whether the game is over. The player rolls the die after placing the
Deal tile on the space. If one of the numbers shown on the back of the
Deal tile is rolled, the party is over. Otherwise, play continues.

Example

At the conclusion of the 12th deal, the game will end if the
Boss rolls a 1, 2 or 3.

The game will end at the latest after the 15th deal. Each player counts
his money and the player with the largest amount wins.

Example of a Round of Negotiations

The following example demonstrates some of the many possibilities the
Influence cards allow and how turbulent the negotiation round can run.

12 deals have been concluded, and the 13th is next. One share is now
worth $5M. The space that the dollar marker stands on will give the
controlling Boss (6 x 5 =) $30M--an enticing sum. However, it requires
5 Investors: Raffzahn, Liebgeld and Knetowitz, and 2 from the list of
Talerfeld, Piepenbrok and Heiermann.

It is Axel's turn and he resolves to make this deal (or at least to
try). He controls the Liebgeld and Piepenbrok Investor cards, which are
automatically in play. From his hand he plays Heiermann and Raffzahn
Clan cards.

The other players control the following Investor cards: Bert: Knetowitz;
Chris: Raffzahn and Heiermann; Doris: Talerfeld.

Axel asks Bert, "If you let me use Knetowitz, I'll pay you one share for
$5M."

Bert considers that too little: "I'm not interested in anything less
than $8M. You'll be getting $22M anyway!"

Axel can't fault this argument and accepts with gritted teeth. But
before he can declare the Deal concluded, Chris sends Axel's Liebgeld
Investor card on vacation with a Travel card. Axel successfully fends
this off with a STOP card (both cards are then discarded). However,
Doris also plays a Travel card on Liebgeld and Axel has no more STOP
cards to defend with. Instead of this Investor card, Doris offers the
use of a Liebgeld Clan card which she plays, demanding a participation
fee of $9M.

While Axel negotiates with her, Bert announces, "I'm the Boss! Forget
Axel, you have to deal with me now," and plays a Boss card.

"I think not!" retorts Axel and plays a Boss card of his own, so that he
remains the Boss. Unfortunately, regardless of what he thinks, Bert has
another Boss card in his hand and plays it. No further Boss cards are
played (the others having none in hand or declining to play them), so he
really is the new Boss and now controls the Deal (all played Boss cards
are discarded).

"I have Talerfeld and Piepenbrok myself," says Bert and lays those Clan
cards in front of him. His Knetowitz Investor card is automatically in
play. Therefore, he still needs Raffzahn and Liebgeld to complete the
Deal.

Doris speaks up first. "I was offering Liebgeld to Axel, but it'll be
more expensive for you: you will have to promise $10M to have him."

Axel offers the Raffzahn Clan card that he played at the beginning of
the round for $10M also, hoping to still get a piece of the pie.

"No it's not!" answers Axel and plays 3 Recruitment cards on Chris to
steal his Raffzahn Investor card. Chris feels stupid for not having
kept any STOP cards to protect against this. "As I was saying, Raffzahn
costs $10M," repeats Axel. He now has Raffzahn as both Clan and
Investor cards in front of him.

"Usury!" whimpers Bert, but he agrees quickly before the Deal gets away
again and declares, "The Deal is closed!"

The banker pays $30M to Bert, who pays Doris and Axel $10M each and
keeps a profit of $10M for himself.

Of the Clan cards, Bert's Talerfeld and Piepenbrok are discarded since
they were needed for the Deal, as is Doris's Liebgeld. Naturally, Axel
used his newly recruited Raffzahn Investor card for the Deal and not the
Clan card of the same name, so he can take the latter back into his
hand. He also takes back Heiermann, since he was not needed for the
Deal at all.

All played Influence cards are put on the discard pile, as well as the
Travel card that was covering Axel's Liebgeld Investor card.

Bert, the final Boss, puts the Deal tile on the space and rolls the die
to determine if the game ends. He rolls a 5, so it continues.

Rules of Engagement

Cutthroat Negotiations in Sid Sackson's _Kohle, Kie$ & Knete_

Despite the number of appearances of the word "turbulent" in the flavor
text of the original rules, the negotiations rounds of this game
basically revolve around a single type of inter-player bargain: cash
from the Boss for the participation of a single card controlled by
another player.

In play at the CMU Gaming Club, the following expansion and
clarification of the negotiations round has been developed. Some
inspirations came from the usual initial mistakes due to a quickie
translation of the rules to this game itself, but a lot of this is based
on our meta-rules for generally "how negotiations rounds should go"
which we have carried from game to game for years. (Kudos especially to
_Republic of Rome_ for finally making it clear by rule that if you
didn't take pains to make sure you weren't screwed, then you are.)

Deals can be between any players for anything. However, the only
thing that can actually change hands is cash, which can only be paid by
the Boss out of dividends upon the successful conclusion of a Deal.

All bargains with the Boss are binding until either the end of the
negotiations round or until the Boss changes; if the latter, the
non-Boss player usually has the option to retract the agreement as in
the original rules, but terms of the agreement itself may give this
option to the new Boss instead (this hasn't actually come up yet, but
we're leaving it in in case someone really clever manages to use it).

All non-Boss bargains (i.e. other bargains between specific players
which are clearly not related to who is the Boss) are binding until the
end of a negotiations round if declared so publicly, after which they
are purely good will regardless.

In the case of disagreement, compliance with intangible terms of
agreements is determined by consensus of the other players.
(Fortunately, this hasn't come up much either.)

Agreements between players can be discussed privately, but players
are not allowed to leave the table to do so and eavesdropping is
actively encouraged. Any agreement for cash from the current Deal must
be public anyway.

Players may never reveal any contents of their hands. They may
declare or deny possession of any card or cards, but may not confirm
this except through actual play of the cards. Any player may answer the
question "How many cards to you have?" with just "I don't have to
discard."

Discussion of possible bargains and/or play of any influence cards
(including Clan cards) is *NOT* allowed until the current player clearly
announces that the current deal is actually open. No encouragement is
allowed to affect the decision of whether the deal should be opened at
all or not. (That is, the correct answer to even a simple observation
of "Gee, if Brian opened that one, he and Will could just clean it up."
is "Yes! He knows that! Shut up!!") The only exceptions to this are a
Recruitment triple played as a forced discard and a STOP played in
response to this.

The eventual final Boss must ask consensus of all the other players
before closing a Deal, after repeating how all of the dividends will be
distributed. Even a declaration of "Going... going..." can be
momentarily interrupted by "Wait, I want to finish asking Chris what
cards he has before we have to shut up again."

Finally, it has been found useful to predesignate a specific way to
confirm that a bargain has actually been agreed to amidst the hubbub of
other bargaining continuing. Instead of bashing knuckles trying to
quickly perform an actual handshake, recommended substitutes are either
only touching hands (a la Akbar and Jeff?) or simply making eye contact
and simultaneously saying "Shake!"

All of this is, of course, subject to the usual meta-rule of "play
faster or we'll hit you".

An extended example of play would be impossible, fraught as it is with
multiple conversations, sign and body language, and inferences drawn
from cards pulled halfway out of hands, but a not unreasonable final
reckoning would be of the form:

"Okay, so I've got what I need: I've got R and K myself, I'm paying 7
total to Dave for T and P and future considerations, nothing for Mark's
T because Dave required me to use his T to get his P, 3 to Jeff for L
less a penalty of 1 for playing a Boss card that made my turn get
skipped AGAIN, 4 to Jon for the two STOP cards he played when Josh was
Boss and that he's holding me to paying for, and 3 to Josh for putting
his hand down on the table and doing nothing for the rest of the round,
leaving me with... um... 2?? Jesus Christ! I don't want this crap--can
anyone vacation something so that it doesn't go through?"